Whist is the classic English trick-taking game and the ancestor of Bridge. Four players form two partnerships, and there is no bidding to slow things down — you just play. The dealer's last card turns up to set trump, and every trick your team wins past six scores a point. First team to 5 wins. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: win more than six of the thirteen tricks with your partner, and score the extras.
| Tricks won | Odd tricks | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | 1 | 1 |
| 9 | 3 | 3 |
| 13 (all) | 7 | 7 |
Three AI difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) from the menu. This is classic partnership Whist: no bidding, the dealer's turned card sets trump, and scoring counts odd tricks to 5. Install it as an app from your browser menu to play offline.
Whist rose to prominence in England in the eighteenth century, and Edmond Hoyle's 1742 treatise on the game was one of the first card-game bestsellers. It ruled English card tables for over a century before Bridge, its direct descendant, overtook it around 1900.
Each team's first six tricks are called the book and score nothing. Every trick a team wins beyond six is an odd trick, worth 1 point. So a team that takes nine tricks scores three points. The first side to reach 5 points wins the game.
No. Classic Whist has no auction or contract. The dealer's last card is turned up to fix the trump suit, and play begins straight away. This is what sets Whist apart from its descendants Bridge and Spades, where bidding drives the whole hand.
The dealer deals all 52 cards one at a time, and the very last card — the dealer's own — is turned face up. Its suit becomes trump for the hand, and the dealer takes that card into their hand before play starts. There is no choice involved.
Bridge grew directly out of Whist in the late nineteenth century, adding bidding, a dummy hand, and richer scoring. If you know Whist you already understand following suit, trumping, and partnership play — the core that Bridge builds on. Whist remains the simpler, faster game.